An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
